I'd been looking forward about since my sister told me about it (she lives in France so saw it a few months before us lot). It's full of gangster cliches, random violence - the director just keeps on throwing in violence instead of building a strong character frame and their was no suspense or tension all the way through the film because I knew that everytime he encountered an enemy he would just shoot them, the scene where it was displaying him as a celebrity when he was caught was terrible - natural born killers esque. It was basically a French version of a Scorsese movie.

I'd pretty much agree with that. The reasons you hate it are precisely the reasons I love it. I didn't want a character study: I wanted a romp, a rollercoaster, a larger than life Mesrine the rock star gangster galavanting around the world generally being a sonofabitch to anyone and everyone. I got that, and I was happy.

and was slightly underwhelmed. Mesrine just dominates as this massive caricature of a sociopathic, glamorous, criminal. The other character were just padding, not really developed or simply skipped over (his wife and kids, for example, just dissapear). It was kind of enjoyable though/ the female characters were, without exception, incredibly pretty...